Comparing evaluative language in the corpora of South Korean government and NGO documents on environmental issues

Abstract

The current study compares the use of evaluative language in the press releases on environmental issues, published online by the South Korean Ministry of Environment and two non-governmental environmental organizations: Green Korea United and Korean Federation for Environmental Movement. The analysis combines the Appraisal Systems with keyword analysis using corpus techniques. The keywords of the government corpus indicate the governments emphasis on representing green issues as a matter of practice and a goal to achieve, and the keywords of the NGO corpus highlight the NGOs concern with the governments role and policy-making. Meanwhile, the quantification of Appraisal reveals how the Appraisal Systems are distributed and used to convey different views on green issues.